


Color Wheel

by flashindie



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Canon, F/M, M/M, synthesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 19:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashindie/pseuds/flashindie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon thinks in colors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Color Wheel

Colour Wheel.

Brendon is born and the world is white.

Hospitalwalls-papergowns-milk-snow-tiles-clouds-skin-rebirth-birth. 

Baby. 

*

There’s a theory for this. There has to be.

People have thought patterns, processes, these worlds inside their head that grow, live, think, die with them (without them). Your own language, dialogue, philosophies and they’re personalised in a way that everything is this century. Customised to suit and this is probably what Brendon’s getting at. People think in a certain way. 

Brendon, he thinks in colours. 

Brendon’s brain, his head and his heart, it was laid flat in the womb, pulled tight and firm over hollow wooden square. Brendon’s head is a canvas and every fleeting thought that winds its way through, it leaves its mark, leaves dashes, slabs, strokes of colour that are too thick and too thin and too there. 

Too permanent. 

Brendon isn’t an artist. 

Brendon, the only thing he’s good at is music, at singing and playing and he wishes that he thought in it too. Wishes he was like Patrick, because that guy, he thinks in blurs of sounds and octaves and drums, pianos, guitars, violins. Thinks in a voice that bleeds under his tongue, behind his teeth, beneath his eyelashes.

Brendon wishes he could breathe music.

Brendon, he drinks colours. Redgreenblueyellowpinkpurplewhitegrey.

Black. 

*

Audrey is something and that’s all he can see. 

“Jesus,” she says, and her eyeliner sprawls beneath her lashes, against her cheekbones, catches in her pores, across her skin. It’s all surface.

Brendon doesn’t say anything.

Thirty seconds ago a boy named Jackson Whittle shoved him into the girls’ bathroom with big hands and a sneer that maybe emphasized the worst parts of him. Forty seconds ago, Brendon opened his mouth when he probably shouldn’t have. Story of his fucking life.

“Jack?” she asks, more to herself than to him. She purses her lips, squints these big, dark-rimmed eyes and dances back on her heels.

Brendon, he nods, counts the tiles, onetwothree.

“I’m Audrey,” she says, and she presses the small of her back up against the sink, lets the water drip drip drip through her long-t-shirt. 

He doesn’t say I know, even though, yeah, he does, instead squeaks out an “’m Brendon,” that scratches over his vocal chords, claws its way around his half-formed Adam’s apple. 

“Brendon,” she hums, tests it out over glossed pink lips. “Here,” she thrusts him a big candy-striped, cotton bag. “Hold this. If any of the girls come in, I’ll tell them you took carrying my books one step further.” 

“Really?”

She nods. Inches closer to dig a hand through the make-up kit in his fingers. 

“Yeah,” she says. “You’re sorta cute.”

Pink, Brendon thinks, lips-blush-gloss-magenta-fuscia-baby-coral. 

Hot.

*

Audrey thinks in fashion statements. In make-up and nose rings, hair dye, clothes, music and boys to fuck. 

Brendon doesn’t really blame her; she’s a product of her generation. 

“Hey,” she says, and Brendon looks up too quickly, cracks his neck and Audrey shoots him a fleeting grin. “If Pete Wentz ever came to Vegas, do you reckon I could fuck him?” 

Red, Brendon thinks, and it tears up his head, the space between his eyes until his breath comes in short rasps and his hands shake. 

She pretends not to see how he goes blank, tries to wipe off the colours, but she moves a little closer anyway, wraps an arm around his shoulders and presses a kiss into the nape of his neck. I-could-fuck-him, she thinks, lipstick-on-my-Livejournal.

She supposes I-could-be-a-star.

“I’m kidding,” she says. “You’re way hotter.”

Brendon breathes out too hard, leans into her touch, into her red lips and her pink hair and her white-as-white skin. Green, he thinks instead.

Audrey grins, fingers her necklace, her rings, her t-shirt. I-think-I’ll-dye-my-hair.

*

If Brendon were better with words, he’d say something like ‘my life started the day I met Brent Wilson’. Not because Brent would mean something in the long run (he would though), but because all of it started with Brent.

“Can you play guitar?” the guy says, and he’s broad set, dark and indifferent and Brendon can only associate unpleasant colours with the kid. He wishes he didn’t, couldn’t. 

“Yeah,” Brendon says, and Brent nods, cogs are working, moving together in perfect alignment. 

Brent, Brendon will come to terms with later, thinks in logic and straight lines. He thinks too precisely and he doesn’t, he can’t leave things to chance. 

He won’t ever trust them, that’s why dumping him won’t be a surprise to anyone.

“Cool,” Brent says, but he thinks the-radius-of-a-circle-is-really-a-line-that-leads-from-the-centre-to-the-outward-surface.

“Do you play anything?” Brendon asks, and he fumbles over the words, rubs the carpet with the toe of his sneaker.

“Bass,” he says. “I’m good.” The-strings-to-a-bass-are-really-firm-really-just-straight-lines.

“Cool,” Brendon remarks and he leans back on his stool. Music class is duller than it should be, and he’s starting to wonder if he should’ve done art instead. 

“You should meet some friends of mine,” Brent says, they’re-two-people-who-play-music. 

There-could-be-something-to-this.

It’s-only-logical.

*

Every story develops, builds and progresses and if Brent was the opening notes, Spencer’s the chord change. He’s tall and growing still, soft around the edges and if Brendon was better with words, he’d think of a synonym that was a lot more flattering than pudgy. 

He gives good hugs. 

“Brendon?” Spencer asks and he tilts his head, scrunches up his face and his eyes, Jesus, Brendon thinks, blueblueblue-bird-blue-dress-blue-sky-blue-sea-blueblublue.

“Yeah,” Brendon says, and he rocks back a little more, nods too adamantly and he turns into such a fucking spaz when he meets new people, is trying too hard to restrain the word vomit that is building in his stomach, burning up his throat.

“Brent says you play guitar?”

“Brent says- yeah, yeah, he says it because -- and he’s right.”

Spencer quirks a brow, widens his eyes (fuck, blue) and Brendon knows he must sound like the biggest retard this side of Greenland, but this guy is potentially his band mate. This guy is in a band and that’s not even something Brendon knew he wanted until thirty seconds ago.

Spencer’s quiet though, pursed lips and clenched jaw and Brendon rocks on his heel, tries for indifference but only manages wide eyes and heavy breathing, one step down from bouncing off the walls.

Tap, Spencer thinks, and that’s something Brendon will have to get used to, because Spencer thinks in drum lines, in beats and rhythms and the taptaptap of wooden stick on drum. 

“You should meet Ryan,” Spencer says, tap.

“Okay,” Brendon says, but he thinks blue. 

*

Ryan is the only person that Brendon will ever meet that thinks in words. 

This kid, he’s tall and skinny (too much, too thin, Brendon can see this guy’s joints, bones, could maybe see him digest food if he looked close enough) and his hair’s longer than Brendon’s mum would ever let him grow it.

This kid must have an awesome mum.

“’m, Ryan,” he says, and he mumbles it out, shoves it through his teeth like it’s something bitter to the taste buds and Brendon just grins, laughs and flashes white teeth. Something about this makes him giddy and Spencer flashes them both a look that Brendon won’t ever be able to place.

Practice isn’t anything to write home about, less music and more clunking sounds that bang and clash together like the carts of a train carriage, and Ryan, on paper he’s the lead singer, but here he’s anything but. Frail and timid and a mess of things that Brendon doesn’t understand. He’s too quiet to be anything resembling talented, and Brendon wants to say something, but it’s not his place yet, so he just smiles instead, and plucks at guitar strings with fingers that won’t move on their own.

*

Audrey calls herself a model, and Brendon grins something fierce and stupid before drawing on her bare belly with marker pens. 

“I’m too precious for Vegas,” she says, and Brendon writes not really on her hip bone.

“Seriously,” she mumbles, and her eyes, they’re as big and dark as they ever were, doe like Bambi’s and they sparkle like fool’s gold. “Vegas is one lounge act after another, one scene slut sitting on the tailcoats of a Myspace whore and I’m better than that.”

Her hair’s pink today, eye shadow green, nail polish black. Her skin’s that shade of fake tan that leaves stains on the bed sheets and Brendon likes her best like this, with all the tackiness of a Vegas gift shop. 

She’s not anything special, but she lets Brendon touch her in places no other girl will, she lets him draw on her flat belly and when they make out, she’s nothing but a patient teacher.

“I’m not just pretty for the cameras,” she says, “and that’s what sets me apart.”

“What else are you pretty for?” Brendon asks, and he writes, seriously, on her belly, is there anything else?

She just smiles again though, runs a hand through his hair and that, those pink lips and that grin that speaks in honesty, he thinks that might be the only part of her that’s just for him. 

*

Rehearsals aren’t bad forever and Brendon sort of supposes that that’s a relief. He likes Spencer, likes Ryan and Brent, even if connections and conversations don’t always come easy.

Ryan’s lyrics don’t leave a lot to the imagination and Brendon knows all the words and this rehearsal, when guitar and drums drown out Ryan’s voice, Brendon’s mumbles stop being whispered out beneath the breath. 

Brendon sings for the first time and music pours out, notes and sounds that cadence on the air in front of him, write themselves on the back of his eyelids. They echo off the walls, hard and fast and bury themselves in ears, across lips and against cheekbones and Brendon doesn’t realise his eyes are shut until he opens them, doesn’t realise everyone else has stopped until he’s stopped too. 

The silence is deafening and there are colours, pinkredgreenblue exploding against the lids of his eyes.

Surprisingly, it’s Ryan who breaks the silence. “That was unexpected,” he says, and he thinks this-could-be-it. 

Brendon wants to think, I know, but all he can see is yellow.

*

Somewhere around puberty, virginity stops being a fact of life and starts being a burden, curse, a pregnancy in itself that’s heavy around Brendon’s waist and dark in the back of his head and two months into a sort-of relationship, Audrey stops being satisfied with quick fingers and twitching tongues.

“Fuck,” Audrey whispers, pants out between kisses and Brendon’s got a hand between her legs and one bracing him over her on the bed. Her tense fingers are working his jeans off his ass and she rubs at his hipbones with nimble strokes. “I want to, Jesus, Bren, lets, I --”

Her cheeks are flushed and her mascaras running races down her face, the finish line etched somewhere above her lips and she’s desperate here, needy in all the best ways, and Brendon’s hands are suddenly deep in his jean pockets, pulling out a condom wrapper that was born from years of being over-prepared and he thinks, this, red, this, white, is it.

Audrey’s moaning out curses, explicits, whatever, and Brendon doesn’t have the heart to listen, the energy or the focus, and by the time he gets the condom on, Audrey’s pulled up her skirt and ripped her lace panties down around her knees, is staring at him expectantly, and by the time he thrusts in, the whole thing is just about over.

Audrey freezes beneath him, body tensed and seized up and she rocks a bit, breathes out hot against Brendon’s neck. “Is that-“

“Uh,” and Brendon flushes, “Well-“

Audrey casts him a disbelieving look, before collapsing back onto the bed. “Jesus Christ.”

“Sorry, I could probably-“

“Forget it.” She shoves him off and out, lets him fall away from her, and she’s rolled her legs over the edge of the bed, is pulling her panties back up her thighs, before tugging down her skirt. 

“Are you still-“

“Not really.”

“We could try again?”

“Doubt it.”

“Audrey-“

“What?” She turns on her heel, stares him straight in the eye and there’s something there that isn’t soft, is sharp and jagged around the edges and Brendon tries for a grin.

“I’m sorry, I just…it’s sorta new.”

Audrey sighs, clenches her eyes shut and rubs at her face with her hands. She breathes out, deep and sharp and when she climbs back into bed, Brendon opens his arms and lets her lean into him.

Later, she whispers out, “I’m not as much of a slut as you think I am.”

“Was that like, was it your -” And Brendon can’t say it, but the colours bleed over Audrey’s face, redpinkwhite. 

“Yeah,” she says, and when Brendon says ‘sorry’ this time, he means it.

*

Brendon’s not sure when or how it happens, but when he comes to practice that week, Pete Wentz (PeteWentz!) is there; short and skinny and that odd sort of scruffy that only the very attractive can make look anything other than ugly. 

Brendon doesn’t know it yet, but Pete thinks in however many pills it’ll take him to get through the day. At least, he does right then.

They do an acoustic set that Brendon won’t think is anything special – nervous and fidgety, over-practiced and bad, but Pete must see something between notes and lyrics, because his grin is so real that it blinds Brendon and makes Ryan stutter more than usual.

It all happens so (too) quickly and Pete plants a record contract in their laps before any of them can make promises, plans, excuses and Brendon’s head goes from blank canvas to obscurest rows of colour in moments, seconds. The sand doesn’t even have the time to reach the bottom of the hourglass.

Pete leaves that night, back to wherever it is that he was before Vegas, and it’s after Spencer and Brent but Brendon doesn’t have the heart to leave the moment. Wants to stay here in Ryan’s shitty garage with him and Pete Wentz forever.

Pete waves goodbye with a quick flick of the fingers, and he moves to hug Ryan, presses them both so tight together that Brendon wonders if Pete’s trying to get beneath his skin, to crawl under and steal whatever it is that Ryan has. Whatever it is that keeps him going, because Ryan’s not whole, pieces broken off and cracks that creep up the edges like spiders legs. 

Brendon thinks Pete maybe needs that – needs the glue or the tape or fuck, the motivation that Ryan keeps between his bones. 

When Pete comes over to Brendon, he wraps tight arms around Brendon’s waist and Brendon, he replies in favour, clenches his fingers in Pete’s ugly hoodie and breathes in his hair, tries to make whatever this is tangible and real, because he doesn’t want to wake up.

It takes all he has to let go of Pete and when he leaves, he flashes them both a smile that’s a lot happier than his eyes, and Brendon hurts somewhere that he can’t quite pinpoint.

This-guy-will-fall-apart-one-day, Ryan thinks.

Brown, Brendon supposes. Brown. 

*  
Suddenly, every part of his life is run by dates, hours, minutes. Go to the studio here, record then, release there. 

Brendon doesn’t even know, doesn’t have the memory for this shit.

Somehow he ends up in a shitty apartment with plaster walls and floral curtains, ends up sharing it with Spencer and Brent and Ryan in a way that doesn’t make sense and, to be honest, doesn’t work. 

They’re writing songs though, building a CD out of long days and short nights, out of Ryan’s angst and Brendon’s desperation that this, that it’ll be something worth keeping. They’re pinning together pieces of music with Ryan’s words and Ryan doesn’t really leave wherever it is he’s writing for hours on end – bathroom, bedroom, hallway. 

They haven’t had a break, not really, and tonight Spencer crashes on the floor, Brent over the beanbag that his mother brought in and when Audrey shows up at the door, Brendon thinks he could cry.

The apartment’s almost embarrassing to show her, but Audrey grins at the flickering lightbulbs and the two single beds between the four of them with something that isn’t malicious or unkind. She holds his hand when he talks about shit and offers to pay for her share of the pizza for dinner.

They end up in the bathroom, just the two of them, with her tongue down his throat and his hands up the back of her skirt.

“It’s sorta not great,” Brendon says between kisses. “But when the album drops and we’re making more money than Bono, I’ll buy you a mansion with like, a fucking moat or whatever.”

Audrey grins, lets loose a laugh that crackles in the back of Brendon’s skull and she jerks away, flips her hair over her shoulder. “I’ll be a kept lady,” she says. “Now fuck off, I have to piss.”

Brendon staggers out of the bathroom with a smile, tries to rub some of her gloss off his own lips with the sleeve of his shirt. He ends up in the living room and Ryan’s there, sprawled over the sofa, reading some shitty book with a name for a title and a city for an author. “Hi.” And Ryan looks up, all sleepy eyes and tired tongue and he motions Brendon over, lets him fall over the arm of the sofa.

“Hi,” Ryan mumbles back, and he puts the book on the floor beside them and stares at Brendon. 

“Hi.”

“You already said that.” 

Brendon laughs, but the silence sets in heavy between them, presses between his eyes, and gnaws at his belly. Ryan sighs, taps his fingers on the arm of the sofa, and Brendon wishes he could think of something witty to say. 

“Is this for real?” Ryan asks.

“What?”

Ryan’s got dark rings beneath his eyes. His hair isn’t washed and he smells earthy, that blend of sweat and bad cologne and something that Brendon will only ever be able to associate with music. Brendon doesn’t know which part of Ryan is beautiful, but right now sums it up pretty well.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really done anything to deserve this, so I wake up in the mornings and think I’m dreaming.”

Brendon doesn’t reply, can’t. It’s not that he’s in love, not like he would even know it if it punched him in the face, but there’s something about the jut of Ryan’s cheekbones, the touch of his fingers, the length of his eyelashes that leave Brendon’s stomach tight and his eyelids heavy. Something about it that feels like something more than childhood, more than puberty and more than just a moment.

“Huh,” Audrey says, and Brendon looks over at her, he hadn’t even heard her come in. 

“What?”

“Nothing,” she replies, and she wanders over, leans down to kiss him on the cheek. “Y’know what, like, I have to go to my grandma’s for lunch tomorrow anyway, so I should probably just head home.”

Brendon purses his lips, reaches a hand out to grope out for her long fingers. “I thought you wanted to stay though?”

Audrey just smiles, rolls her eyes a little and stands up. She puts a hand on either hip and her head on her shoulder. “Whatever.”

Brendon looks back over at Ryan who just shrugs and gets up to go to bed.

*

The studio is maybe, probably, definitely, the coolest thing ever.

There’s something about the atmosphere, the environment, the fact that he is writing and singing on an honest to God CD that leaves the colours pooling behind his eyelids and Ryan’s lyrics draining off his tongue, even when he’s not in a recording booth.

“Jesus Christ,” Spencer says, and he leans further back in the chair. “Shut the fuck up, Brendon Urie.”

“Uh, no, Spencer Smith.” He’s sure the guy smiles, positive. Brendon bounds over, presses his lips to Spencer’s forehead. “Dude, fuck, this is what it must feel like to Ariel when she’s on land with the Prince. I swear to God.”

Spencer laughs, but Ryan’s sitting in the background, headphones on and Brendon hadn’t even known he was listening. “Dorothy in the Emerald City.”

Brendon grins, and sees yellow. “This feels an awful lot like something magic, Toto.”

*

This? This not so much.

“I don’t...I just can’t anymore, Brendon.”

He’s not sure which part of him is hurting, thinks it could be the space beneath his fingernails, somewhere in his intestines, he doesn’t even know, but it’s halfway to unbearable. “What can’t you-“

“This -” And Audrey’s all gestures, wild arms and wide eyes (they’re bloodshot, rimmed with a black that Brendon doesn’t think is just eyeliner.)

“What?”

Her arms shake and she clenches her fists against her eyes. When she looks up, it’s exhausted and resigned and when she says, “You, Brendon, I can’t do you anymore,” Brendon feels like he could explode, feels like there’s a land mine burning beneath his feet.

Brendon blinks, clenches his fingers in his jean pockets. “Was the sex bad or whatever? Because, like, I’m pretty sure I’ll get better.”

“Fuck.” She presses her fingers against closed eyes again and Brendon thinks she could be crying. She looks up at him. “I don’t think I’m the one you want.”

“What’s that even mean?”

Audrey sighs, talks to the floor. “Look, you’ve got fame and stardom on your horizon. I told you already I want my own, I’m not gonna ride on anyone’s coattails, least of all yours.”

“Audrey, fuck, that’s not even a real excuse, look -” He reaches out, grabs at her arm. She pulls away. “No, Brendon, goodbye. Just, good luck and goodbye.”

Brendon bites his tongue and works too hard to blink back bright spots that appear behind his eyes. He thinks that if this were a movie – he thinks that if this were TV – if this were anything but real life something better would be round the corner. Maybe Bright Eyes would be the soundtrack. Maybe that’s melodramatic. Point is, he can’t help feeling like he’s lost something, even if Audrey wasn’t really worth it in the first place.

*

Break-up depression is really a chick thing and Brendon figures he’ll probably care as soon as it stops hurting.

“You alright?” Ryan asks, and Brendon clenches his eyes shut, buries hard beneath the covers of the bed.

“Fine.”

“Okay,” Ryan says, and he pulls back the sheets, strips them from Brendon’s back and Brendon just curls up, works the foetal position. He hears a sigh somewhere above him and feels the bed dip. Ryan’s spindly legs are stretched out behind him and Brendon can feel his breath on the back of his neck.

Ryan sighs again, stares at the ceiling. “Do you want like, a hug or whatever?”

Brendon pauses, beat, before rolling over and saying, “Yeah, okay.”

*

They have an album tucked beneath their belt, so Brendon figures it’s ridiculous that they’re yet to play for a real audience, for a crowd, for anyone. They’ve built a fanbase out of Ryan’s pretty face and recorded demos and fuck, out of Pete Wentz, none of it’s been hard-earned and when they go to play their first real gig, the jitters shake their way from Brendon’s toes to his forehead.

The audience though, they’re there and real and fuck, they’re tangible. They’re not a haze of imagination, they’re faces that Brendon can see, eyelashes he can count, sweat he can feel and when he gets on stage he sings until his throat’s raw. 

“We were so, so terrible,” Ryan says, and it’s been three, four, five minutes since they staggered off stage, collapsed into the backdrop behind curtain and lights, away from crowd and voices.

“Then stop smiling, loser.”

The only thing Brendon will ever, ever regret about this night is that he didn’t have to woo the crowd, didn’t have to win them with raw talent or charisma.

They were long won. 

*

The Academy Is… is sorta amazing and Brendon doesn’t think he’d be able to say that five times fast, but really, he’s always been pretty useless with that shit. The guys, Bill, Siska, all of them, they make the tour easier than Brendon figures they deserve. 

Tonight, Siska’s sitting on the sofa, legs curled up beneath him opposite a guy that Brendon’s only ever seen backstage. They’re playing red hands and Brendon doesn’t think Siska’s winning.

“Fuck,” Siska says after a particularly loud slap. The other guy just laughs, mumbles out something that sounds a lot like poor baby.

The door swings open though, sudden and abrupt and Butcher is there, wild eyed and big grinned and he pulls Siska up by the arm, drags him out with a laugh. The guy on the couch blinks, chuckles again, and moves to fiddle with the guitar in the corner. Brendon shrugs, taps out a rhythm on his knee until Aladdin bleeds beneath his tongue, and he sings A Whole New World like he wrote it, said it, felt it. When the guy hums along, well, Brendon hesitates to use the word fate, but silver trickles through his irises, across his pupils until it’s all he can see.

“A whole new world,” the guy murmurs, breathes out into open space and Brendon stops, stares and the guy mustn’t realise, keeps going. “Don’t you dare close your eyes.”

The silence is sort of telling and when he leans back, blinks at Brendon’s grin, he just laughs, throws his hands up and shrugs in a way that Brendon can maybe identify with. 

“What an introduction,” he says. “I sing better in the shower.”

Brendon laughs, rocks back onto his heels and flashes the grin that won Audrey. “Hey, you seen me on stage? I sing better like, anywhere else.”

The guy runs a hand through his hair and returns a grin that goes straight to Brendon’s belly. “I’m Jon.”

“Brendon.”

*

There’s a million awful ways to break up with someone. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

“We can still be friends.”

(goodbye and goodluck).

Brendon doesn’t even know, but maybe all of them apply to Brent.

It wasn’t him.

It was them.

Brendon closes his eyes and sees black.

*

Brendon’s not sure what Ryan’s dad thought in, but he supposes that in reality, it doesn’t matter all that much now because the guy’s dead.

Spencer says the phone call’s not a surprise and Brendon opens his mouth, closes it, opens it. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t say anything,” Spencer says, and he squints bleary-blues out the window. Ryan’s sitting on the grass outside the bus, eyes pointing skyward and fingers deep in the earth. Brendon turns to watch too. He almost doesn’t hear Jon slide in beside him. “I don’t know him well enough.” 

Brendon purses his lips, chews on the inside of his cheek. “Me neither.” 

Jon shrugs, presses his forehead against the glass and says, “Moments like this make me wish I smoked.”

Brendon flashes him a grin before pulling himself up. He can feel Spencer’s eyes on him when he pulls open the door to the bus and heads outside. 

By the time he gets to Ryan, his shadow is tall, casts over Ryan like the bad guy in black and white films and that’s nothing Brendon wants. He pauses, toes the dirt with his shoe and says, “Do you like-“ 

Ryan stands up. Stares. Sighs. 

“Do you want company?” Brendon tries and Ryan closes his eyes, lashes laid flush against his cheeks and Brendon has to remind himself to breath.

“I don’t know,” Ryan says, and doubles over, throws up on Brendon’s shoes. 

I’m-hurting, Ryan thinks, and-I-don’t-know-why.

Brendon doesn’t think at all. 

*

Spencer and Ryan go back to Vegas for the funeral and Brendon does The Right Thing and stays back and doesn’t ask questions and doesn’t talk about family and tunes their bus playlist to not play any depressing songs.

When they get back, Brendon paints a smile on his face and wanders around like a doll or a clown. He censors himself in all the worst ways and he figures it probably doesn’t matter in the long run because Ryan won’t even look at him, let alone talk.

“It’ll get better,” Spencer says, and Brendon thinks, black. 

When?

*

Brendon pulls back the curtain to Ryan’s bunk like it’s opening night of Depressing!the musical and Ryan only stares back with half-lidded eyes and clenched lips. There’s no applause, and without an audience, Brendon’s always a little lost. 

“Hi,” he says.

Ryan doesn’t even blink, but his face softens just enough to be noticeable. “Hi.”

Brendon bites his lower lip before caving, pushing Ryan over against the wall of the bus and pulling himself over the edge of the thin mattress. He’s not good at this, at comfort and quiet, and Ryan, he’s stiff to the touch and when Brendon finally thinks red-fuck-it, and wraps arms around Ryan’s waist, he’s almost surprised not to be pushed straight out of the bed. 

They just hug and Brendon breathes in the moment, Ryan’s hair and skin and just, he holds on. “I won’t say anything if you promise me that you’ll be alright in the morning.”

The silence pools between them, runs down Brendon’s legs and sprawls beneath his toes. He’s stopped hoping for an answer when Ryan says, “Okay.”

*

The break is almost too welcome, a bed at the end of a long day, and when Brendon’s had enough of his family, he somehow ends up at Ryan’s. 

The door swings wide and Ryan blinks, almost startled. 

“Do you know what’s fun about being Mormon?”

“What?”

“Nothing,” Brendon states. “Fuck-all. Stupid like, fucking religious practices. Who needs them?”

Ryan quirks a grin. “Not you?”

“Not me.” Brendon manages to squirm his way past Ryan and into the wide apartment. He stops dead. “Wow, this is like, bare.”

It is, too. The floorboards stretch from one wall to the other and the only thing that mars it is Ryan’s open suitcase and a tiny television tucked into the corner. Brendon can see the Animal Planet logo in the corner of the screen as lions tussle in the middle. 

Ryan rolls his eyes. “Fuck off, I’ve pretty much been here for two hours, I’m sorry if I haven’t had time to set up house in between states on tour.”

Brendon laughs, but he collapses onto the floor sprawls himself out and reaches his arms up in the universal language of hug? Ryan grins, and he lies down too, but not into Brendon. The dialogue from the tiny television drowns in the low hum of Brendon’s voice as he murmurs out wordless tunes. This is easy, and Brendon, he can’t pinpoint it, but some part of him, something in his belly, intestines, liver, there’s something there that catches, beats, breathes on its own when Ryan’s there.

“This is nice,” he mumbles.

“Lying on the floor?” Ryan quirks a brow, rolls his eyes and it’s just, Brendon doesn’t mean to, has always figured his control was a little better, but he leans in, closes a gap that’s always been too small and presses his lips against Ryan’s. It’s not intentional, not planned, but Brendon won’t ever regret it. 

It’s over quick, Ryan doesn’t open his lips and there’s no Hollywood ending, he backs off with wide eyes the colour of burnt almonds that seeps through Brendon’s skin until it’s all he can see. Ryan sighs, and he puts two hands on either side of Brendon’s face. “It’s just a crush,” he says and Brendon wants to ask whose? But he doesn’t.

*

Jon thinks in snapshots and whole pictures. In galleries and photo-blogs and Brendon thinks that even that would be better than fucking colours. 

“I get like…” Brendon takes a deep breath, scuffs his toe in the dirt and stares at the sky. “I feel weird around him.”

Jon’s fiddling with the camera lens. He needs subjects (models) for the pictures in his head, so when he says, “What?” it isn’t entirely selfless. 

Brendon just shrugs.

“Good weird or bad weird?” This much is him giving a damn.

Brendon chews the inside of his cheek, thinks, powder-blue-violet. “Good.”

“Okay,” Jon says, and he drops the camera to the grass before collapsing back against the trunk of the tree. Brendon’s shadow is tall on the earth and Jon wonders if it’d look anywhere near as imposing from a million feet above. 

“It’s just a crush,” Brendon says and that’s it, end of conversation. 

Jon won’t ever ask ‘who’?

*

It doesn’t hurt at first, but the shock knocks him to the ground and leaves crimson burning behind his eyes. There’s a jackhammer pounding through his forehead and when he blinks awake, he almost feels hungover.

There’s powdered sky around Ryan’s eyes, ocean, sapphire, Brendon doesn’t know, but the colour flashes through his legs and Brendon reaches up, wraps fingers around Ryan’s arms as he pulls him up. “What happened?” he mumbles, and his head lolls, rocks on its own right and Ryan’s voice is tight and brittle when he says, “Some fucker threw a bottle.” 

“Oh,” Brendon says, and all he feels is Ryan being pulled away, Zach and security dragging him off and he’s backstage, some doctor with blue hair and a nose ring up in his face.

“How many fingers?” she says, and Brendon can hear Spencer talking, saying fuck, we can’t go back out. Jon’s whispering in a tone Brendon’s never heard before. What if they do it again? Jesus and Brendon wishes they were closer.

“Mr. Urie,” the woman asks, and it’s slow this time. “I need you to tell me how many fingers I’m holding up.”

“What?” 

She stares at him then quickly pulls back his eyelids and flashes in a light. She puts it down. “I’ll ask you only once more, Mr. Urie, how many fingers?”

“What? Three.” She sighs, and maybe it’s relief, but Brendon can’t figure why because like, it was just a bottle.

She makes a gesture and Spencer, Jon and Ryan rush forward and Spencer’s quick, says, “We can stay back here. We don’t have to go back out.”

Brendon blinks. “We sorta do.”

The others each cast him a disbelieving look.

“Like,” he says, and he breathes deep, “like you fall off a horse, you get back on the fucker, right?”

Ryan doesn’t say anything and Spencer furrows a brow. “Horses don’t throw shit at you though.”

“They could if they wanted to – y’know, stand up on their back legs and just start hurling.”

“Jesus,” Jon laughs. “Maybe you should have your head checked out again.”

Ryan sighs, presses cool fingers to the bruise on Brendon’s head and there’s something there, something passed make-up and cover-up that Brendon can’t quite pinpoint, he’s not sure why it makes him think, pink. 

“Let’s go,” Ryan says. “You die on stage I’ll fucking kill you.”

Brendon grins. “Can’t kill something that doesn’t want to die.”

Ryan offers a hand, and Brendon refuses, struts out like he’s got something to prove (he has) and when he takes up the mike, he grins at the crowd. “Let’s see how you go with my other side.”

*

Tonight it’s not just New York City they’re playing for, not just America, but fuck, Brendon thinks, gold, it’s the whole fucking world. Billions of people and the only thing that causes any divide is a television screen and time zones and Brendon just, fuck, but he’s nervous. 

“What happens if we win?” Brendon asks. 

Ryan shrugs. “We get up, make a speech, get congratulated by Paris Hilton and are welcomed into a galaxy of universal acceptance.”

Brendon grins, but even to him it feels queasy. “Could’ve done with that in high school.”

Ryan smirks. “I reckon, huh?”

“Fuck,” Spencer says. “We’re at the VMA’s. Last year, I was watching this shit, it was all anyone talked about the next day and now it’s like, it’s us.”

Jon grins wide, and Brendon just, groans and puts his head between his knees. Ryan sidles up beside him, runs a hand through his hair. “It’ll be awesome,” he whispers, and he presses his lips against the back of Brendon’s neck so fast that Brendon’s not sure if he imagined it. “I’ll hold your hand if you want.”

Brendon’s head darts up, but Ryan’s already turned away, talking to Jon about the hot blonde girl in their dancing troupe. 

*

It’s not a full moon when it happens. There are no stars in the sky or bird calls in the distance. If Brendon were a romantic, if this were a movie, if Ryan were a girl – it’d be different. All of it and Brendon doesn’t think he’d want it as much as he does. 

“I don’t think it’s a crush,” he says, and it’s as honest as he’ll ever be, as he ever could. There are better declarations, but Brendon only has a head full of colour and a heart full of music, neither one has an ounce spare for romance. 

It’s just the two of them and Ryan sighs, breathes out in the open space and turns to stare out the window of the tour bus. Brendon leans back, watches the ceiling with tired eyes (tired heart) and counts the specks of dirt, the lines and marks. The clock chimes and the bus staggers like a drunken whore walking the line of sobriety and Brendon feels the cold bite at his toes, at his fingers. 

“I don’t love you,” Ryan says, and Brendon starts, ignores the ache blossoming in his chest, crawling up his stomach, constricting his lungs. Ryan turns in his seat, drops his chin down onto his clenched fist. “But I could.”

Brendon stops, blinks and he doesn’t smile, doesn’t laugh or cry, just tilts his head to the side and says. “Yeah?”

Ryan pauses. Nods. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Brendon murmurs and they don’t kiss, they don’t hug or make love or even fuck. Not yet. This isn’t fiction, not movie, song, book. Brendon lays his head on the table, shuts his eyes and thinks, white.

White.


End file.
